Beyond the Veil
by alyssss
Summary: What if James and Lily are there to catch Sirius when he falls through the veil? /Oneshot


Beyond the Veil

Sirius swept his wand around him in a wide arc, deflecting his cousin's stunning spell and sending a jet of red light back in her direction. Bellatrix ducked, throwing her head back and laughing as her curls of dark hair tumbled freely down her back. "Come on, you can do better than that!" Sirius yelled, his voice bouncing off the cavernous walls of the chamber. He lifted his wand again, his eyes alight with adrenaline and the thrill of the fight while his lips stretched into a wide, toothy grin.

Bellatrix laughed back at him, her eyes glittering with malevolent darkness. She lifted her wand, flicking her wrist and sending a jet of red light in his direction. It appeared to move in slow motion across the room, twisting and zig-zagging through the air until hitting Sirius square in the chest.

His eyes darkened in realisation, his grin becoming slack. His wand clattered to the floor, barely heard over the shouts of spells and curses flashing across the room, while his body began to fall.

The curtain brushed against his back as his shoulders fell against the fluttering black fabric. The warmth beyond seemed to reach out like hands, taking hold of his clothes and pulling him down into the void, tumbling through the darkness towards a far distant light.

_No_, he thought urgently, the stunning spell wearing off. He turned, scrabbling desperately through the darkness as he fought to find his way back towards the echoing sounds of the battle. His fingers clasped hopelessly around empty air, doing nothing to slow his progress towards the blazing white light on the other side. His next word was little more than a choked whisper, an exclamation of realisation so sudden and so choked with grief that it broke his heart to let it go. "_No._"

He let his arms fall to his sides, closing his eyes as the light approached. As much as he wanted to see what was on the other side, he couldn't avoid the sudden, empty pain that had manifested itself in his chest. The realisation that he had left Harry behind, in a world so full of darkness, while he himself was free from the terror Lord Voldemort would surely soon inflict. He couldn't escape the feeling that Harry had finally been safe, had finally been happy after a lifetime of darkness, but now that light had been cruelly stolen from him by _her_.

The darkness vanished, replaced with a sudden gleaming bright white light pressing against his eyelids. A sudden warmth enveloped him, pressing against his chest and his face like a million hands caressing his skin. His knees hit the floor, his hands curled against the smooth, worn stone.

"Sirius," A voice whispered, arms wrapping tightly around his shoulders and pulling the fallen man forwards. Sirius buried his face in the shoulder of the young man before him, his body shaking with silent, wracking sobs of grief. Though his once-tangled hair was now shorter and smoothed, his sagging skin and the dark circles around his eyes remained as tokens of his stay in Azkaban. Even as he crouched there, his whole body consumed with agony and relief, the wear and age displayed on his surface seemed to fade.

"James." Sirius opened his eyes, pulling away from the embrace and letting his mouth crumple into a sad smile. "I tried to look after him, I really did."

James smiled sadly in return, his hands still resting on Sirius' sagging shoulders. "You were there for him when we couldn't be."

Sirius nodded, only now noticing Lily too, crouched at his side. She had one hand resting on the knee of her husband and one on his, her bright green eyes glittering in the sunlight streaming in from the window above. "Thank you."

He looked up, his eyes trailing around the vast, stone room. They appeared to be in the Entrance Hall of Hogwarts Castle: a great white light shone down through the stained glass windows above the doors, bouncing off the worn stone floors and lighting the grand staircase leading up towards the rest of the castle.

"Where do we go from here?" Sirius asked, wiping away the last residue of the tears that had begun to dry on his cheeks. It was better, now that his friends were here. Moony could be relied on to look after Harry, he knew. And he'd given Harry everything he'd ever owned- he wouldn't have to go back to the Dursleys, not now.

"That's up to you," Lily smiled, lifting one pale hand to rest on his shoulder. "You can stay here, or you can move on."

"If I stay, will you stay with me?" He asked, but James shook his head.

"If you stay here, you'll never be able to move on. The people that you want to stay behind to protect will age and die, and you'll have to watch them and then go on for the rest of eternity without them. Come with us, and you'll have to wait a while, but you'll be able to be with them forever."

Sirius looked past his friends at the great oak doors that once led out into the grounds, but something about the bright golden light streaming in from outside told him that this time, they would take him elsewhere. "If I go with you, if I go through those doors, I can never go back?" His words seemed to bounce off the wall before coming to hang in the empty silence between them.

"We can't help you choose what to do, Sirius."

He sat in silence for a few moments more, letting himself be absorbed by the peace and companionship surrounding him. For the first time in years he felt free. The guilt he had carried around with him for almost fifteen years had finally lifted, the thoughts that it had been he who had killed Lily and James Potter finally dissipating from his mind. Of course he would be leaving the Order behind, but what use was he to anyone dead? It was an unfortunate fact of life that he would undoubtedly see his old friends so soon, that he would eventually be able to spend all the time in the world with the godson he had only so recently found.

He pushed himself to his feet, brushing invisible specks of dirt from his robes and taking one last look at the grand, stone hall. James and Lily stood with him, their eyes gazing up at him expectantly. _They were so young_.

"James… Lily… I'm sorry. I'm sorry I chickened out. If it wasn't for me…"

"If you hadn't given the responsibility to Peter, you would have been here much sooner." Lily assured him, brushing a strand of flame-red hair away from her eyes.

"It's through that door, isn't it? The next great adventure?"

James nodded, wrapped his arm around the shoulder of his old friend and pulled him close. "I knew you'd go down fighting," he grinned, pushing his glasses back up the length of his nose. "Come on."

Sirius exhaled through his nose, his chest heavy with a mixture of excitement and regret. There were so many things he had left unsaid, but he had tried his best to be there for Harry. He had taken every second for granted, seen each minute as guaranteed, expected there to be another time for the things he wanted to say.

_There's time_, he told himself as he took a step closer to the door. He took another, and then another until he found his fingers wrapped tightly around the metal handle, ready to pull. His nose was almost pressed against the dark wood, his breath misting against the cool iron embellishments up the height of the door. He pushed down on the handle, twisting his wrist around until he heard the lock click. At the last moment he turned back around, his eyes finding Lily's and then moving up to find James' one last time.

"Ready, Padfoot?"

"Ready, Prongs."


End file.
